This Week in Review☕: Harvard donations drop in rocky year | The first Woman on the Moon | Prada x NASA to collaborate on space missio | Frozen waffles in supermarkets could be contaminated | Fentanyl

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Quick Bites:

Education 📚: Harvard donations drop by 15% in rocky year.

Gifts to the university totaled $1.17 billion this June, down from $1.38 billion the previous year, with Harvard’s endowment declining 34%, The Wall Street Journal reports.

@Parents, please stop dropping $ of dollars to get your preppy kid into Harvard.

“Meet Emily, the overachieving Harvard junior who wakes up at 5 am to meditate, runs a fintech startup, and manages a perfectly curated Instagram filled with latte art and #GirlBoss captions.

She’ll drop words like ‘synergy’ and ‘blockchain’ into casual conversations, all while scrolling through TikTok for ‘quick productivity hacks.’

And OFCOURSE, she’s on the rowing team, has a perfectly color-coded Notion page, and somehow still finds time to debate climate change on her podcast.”

Oh, and she has ZERO friends whatsoever.. DUH 🙄🙄🙄

Key Highlights, reported by WSJ:

💡Endowments are a crucial part of the school’s operations

💡Harvard President Alan Garber acknowledged that the totals were “disappointing”

💡Harvard and other universities around the country have been rocked by pro-Palestinian protests after Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023

💡How the schools responded drew fierce criticism from some high-profile donors

💡Claudine Gay resigned as President in January over her response to campus anti-semitism and mounting allegations of plagiarism.

💡Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin has said he paused donations due to the handling of antisemitism on campus

💡The family foundation of investor Len Blavatnik stopped donations late last year

💡Harvard said in its financial report that it is working on “rebuilding not only a sense of belonging but also genuine acceptance among members of our community.”

Our Thoughts💡: Ugh.. all this fuss about an Ivy league education

Meanwhile, our energy for the rest of 2024 is to try and live everyday like Elle Woods after Warner told her she wasn’t smart enough to go to Harvard 🥰👇🏻

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Food 🧇 : Another one bites the dust.. the once popular breakfast dish ‘Waffles’ might be headed towards it’s demise.

We mean.. if you smother it in an avalanche of Nutella & smash it to death under whipped cream and granola, it tastes just fine

The world’s obsession with waffles dwindles as “Listeria”, a potentially deadly bacteria, has been found in hundreds of frozen waffle products, NPR reports.

Tons of frozen waffle brands sold in major retailers like Walmart and Target have been called back.

This comes after one of the manufacturers did a routine testing at one of their production facilities and identified a potential listeria contamination. 

Umm we’re old enough to recall the e.coli outbreak in romaine like a year ago and the listeria outbreak in milk and fruit the year before that. Ugh its always vegan food right?

This is why we hate veganism.. Because y’all know what’s never contaminated? Steak, chicken and fish. FACTS.

💡In the US, listeria is the 3rd leading cause of death from food-borne illness, killing about 260 people a year, according to the CDC.

💡In general, diseases from food continue to rise as efforts to prevent them fail.

💡“Even with adequate antibiotic treatment, the disease has a high mortality rate” of 20% to 30%, CNN reports.

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Fashion👠: After a 6-year hiatus, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show returned to New York last week.

The show featured a lineup of all-female musical talent, including Cher and Tyla, and runway appearances from old and new faces.

Umm only thing we have in common with VS angels? Being HUNGRY 🤤 

PS. When your lingerie says Victoria’s Secret but your body says McDonalds 🐷👇🏻

Background💡: For years, Victoria’s Secret has been associated with glamour. The brand dominated the lingerie world with its signature runway shows featuring supermodel “Angels” known for their ultra-slim, “traditionally attractive” bodies.

First streamed online in 1999, then televised in 2001, the VS Fashion Show became a sex-charged show watched by millions in 200 countries at its peak, with performances by Destiny’s Child, Justin Timberlake and Kanye West.

However, over time, this image of stick-thin, largely all- white models became controversial.

Critics called it out for promoting unrealistic beauty standards and lacking body diversity, leading the brand to plummet in sales and viewership.

Key Highlights, reported by CNN:

💡There appeared to be more brown and black faces on the runway than at any time in the show’s history

💡There were also some plus-sized and older models walking this year

💡Last week’s multi-racial, size and generational cast was their latest attempt at a rebrand.

💡The show was also streamed live on its social media platforms instead of heavily edited as a TV special.

“Our customer is crying out for the show,” Chief design and creative officer, Janie Schaffer said.

She also added that they are well-placed to deliver it with Victoria’s Secret’s “group of really experienced, strong women in the business that can really get the balance of the brand right.”

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Space Travel 🚀 : Moon a la mode? Prada to design spacesuit expected to be worn by the “first woman to walk on the moon.”

Ok, now thats a collab we can get behind. If you’re making history, ofcourse you should look fabulous doing so 😉

Key Highlights, reported by Wired:

💡Italian fashion giant ‘Prada’ and Texas-based startup ‘Axiom Space’ will collaborate to design NASA’s lunar spacesuits for the Artemis III mission, scheduled for 2026

💡Prada has contributed to the textile production and sewing expertise for the gender-neutral suit

💡The suit also includes engineered boots that will allow astronauts to spacewalk for at least 8 hours a day

💡The mission will be the 1st crewed moon landing since 1972

💡Performance is the top priority but Prada has also contributed to making one of the planet’s most recognisable outfits.

💡While there is no brand logo present to signal the Italian firm’s role, the suit features several striking red lines on its otherwise all-white surface, that make it clear it’s designed by Prada.

Our Thoughts💡: 

Fashion on the launchpad > Fashion on the Runway.. The NEW world order 💯 

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Health 💉 : A fentanyl vaccine could help prevent drug deaths and overdoses.

Scientists are developing a fentanyl vaccine that could chart a new course in the opioid crisis, Bloomberg reports.

It wouldn’t cure opioid addiction, but it could prevent a lot of accidental deaths.

Key Highlights, reported by Bloomberg:

❤️Almost 75,000 people in the US died last year from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, according to the CDC

💡Fentanyl is ridiculously cheap and roughly 100x more potent than morphine.Drug dealers add small amounts of it to cocaine and fake versions of Adderall and other pills

💡In slightly larger amounts, it stops brain functions that regulate breathing

💡“The science has been there for 5 to 7 years. It is just that no one has tried to turn it into a commercial effort.”

💡Bringing a new drug to market can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and the regulatory process could be tricky considering there’s no vaccine in the world quite like this

💡 “It’s a moon shot, but a moon shot is what the country needs right now.”

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Quicker Bites:

• Disney to replace Bob Iger in early 2026, as part of a boardroom shake up,
• Giorgio Armani eyes retirement.
• Restaurant bankruptcies rose in 2024, thanks to higher labor costs and a “COVID hangover.”
• Kamala Harris wants to take on “abusive” corporate landlords.
• Boeing union to vote on strike deal.
• Donald Trump works at McDonalds drive-thru as the US gets closer to the elections.

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